


May challenge double pity

by middlemarch



Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: American Civil War, Chivalry, F/M, Romance, Slow Burn, backed into a corner
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-13
Updated: 2016-06-13
Packaged: 2018-07-14 22:36:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7193699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mary is backed into a corner.</p>
            </blockquote>





	May challenge double pity

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ultrahotpink](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ultrahotpink/gifts).



“Good Lord, Mary! What are you doing?” Jed exclaimed. His tone conveyed his surprise and bafflement as well as a significant degree of unalloyed amusement. Mary herself was not so amused, having spent the afternoon scrubbing the floor of the smaller ward. It had apparently not been properly scrubbed since well before the Greens turned over command of the hotel to Major Summers and his staff. The degree of filth, a composite of human effluvia and the earth’s own contribution of dust and mud tracked in from the streets, from battlefields, from train depots and the point of origin of every inhabitant of the room, was beyond anything Mary had ever encountered. However, she was a New Hampshirewoman strong in her faith—she honored liberty, respect of her fellow man and the value of an orderly world in equal measure and she would not allow the wood floor to triumph. So she had fought, with her bucket of cooling water, now equal parts grime and the pale brown soft soap the kitchen stocked, a pile of rags, and her own indomitable spirit, and finally the war had been won. It seemed a poor reward to be caught out by Jedediah, leaning back on her heels as she knelt, her skirts sodden, sweat darkening her bodice and her hair falling around her flushed face, here and there stuck to her damp cheeks like a mermaid’s as she breached the wave.

“Surely you can see I’ve been scrubbing this floor, the past two hours and finally it’s done,” she replied. She allowed the exasperation to color her voice and saw he smiled at her, the picture of neatness in his dark jacket and pants, carefully knotted blue cravat. She glimpsed his fawn vest and noted the crease of his trousers. His dark eyes shone.

“Well, then, if it’s done, then you have won, in the great pitched battle of Mary versus Disorderliness and I think you may retreat and celebrate your victory in more… salubrious conditions?” he suggested. 

“How can I? There’s nothing to be done but wait or it’s wasted,” she said, gesturing at herself, the bucket filled to the brim with a grey soapy scum, and the two walls that contained her. She was backed into a corner unless she would walk across the shining, wet clean floors with her own boots. If she had planned better, she would have started in the corner and scrubbed towards the door. Or she would have worn a pair of clean house slippers. But she had started at the arched entry and she wore her same, worn brown boots which were caked with dirt, enough to leave muddy footprints across the golden oak planks. Her hands were nearly raw from scrubbing. She winced a little at how sore they were and knew she would need the calendula salve she kept in her room. Her sister Caroline would gasp to see the state of her hands and fingernails and would keep her in goose-grease and cotton gloves a full week but she had only a pot of calendula and comfrey and the hours from midnight to daybreak to rest.

“Ah, I see your dilemma, madam. Well, never you mind, I have a solution even you will accept-- historical, chivalric, and it will keep your floors clean,” he said with a laugh. Then he took his coat off and dropped it on the floor in front of her. It covered a large enough area that she could step upon it and then to the part of the floor that was dry, where her dirty boots would do little damage.

“Oh, Jed!” she cried. “Your coat, it will get all wet and dirty, you shouldn’t have!” Wet it would certainly be, but she needn’t soil it with her boots and she conveyed her resistance with lips firmly pressed and a sharp nod. She must wait.

“Well, I have it on good authority from Nurse Hastings that the men are eager for their suppers, though how eager they may be for stewed mutton and boiled turnips remains to be seen. Surely you don’t mean to leave those hungry soldiers waiting?” he asked, playing upon her emotions like Gabriel and his great golden harp. She thought of the men lying in their beds, how little she could give them, how thankful they would be for the meager meal and the little word she had for each, “Good evening” to some and “God keep you” to others. To the youngest, she would play mother and remind them “Try to finish it all, you need your strength” and they would nod solemnly as only boys of seventeen could.

“There’s nothing else to do then, I suppose,” she said and rose slowly. He gave her an encouraging look and held his hand out to her to help her balance as she stepped lightly over his coat. The wool was so dark it was hard to make out the water seeping into the cloth.

She ended up rather closer to him that she had planned, close enough that he might have put his other arm around her and drawn her to him, her damp bodice staining his fawn vest unnoticed while he kissed her softly, possessively, intimately. She could tell from his tone that her eyes had become dazed with the image, the loving desire that flared in her, hot and sweet and charged as sugared coffee.

“The coat was due for the laundry in any case, Mary, and you would not eat your supper without serving the men first,” he paused and looked at her, such a knowing look! “I have designs,” he said, his baritone not a whisper. 

“Designs?” she repeated, her voice steadier than she would have thought. In her mind, she was breathless.

“Well, the chaplain and I have been playing chess and I am afraid I am only one move from checkmate. I had thought you might advise me. Or failing that, we might resolve our argument on the merits of Shakespeare and Milton. In any case, I require you as do the men and this whole hospital. We cannot have you languish in a corner till the floors dry,” he finished. He bent to pick up his jacket and draped it over one forearm. The other he held out to her, elegant as a courtier in a frilled ruff and satin breeches.

“If you will, my lady baroness?” he asked, more softly and she knew he meant, my queen, my Elizabeth, _semper eadem ___, always the same. He pretended since that was what was allowed. She returned his glance and the alternate motto spoke for her in the tilt of her head, the way she let herself look at his mouth, her hand she placed upon his arm, _video et taceo ___, I see and say nothing.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a little gift-fic for ultrahotpink to help her with some writer's block and with a story where she feels backed into a corner. Jed is borrowing the gesture from Sir Walter Raleigh just as I have borrowed the title, from the second stanza of his "The Silent Love II,"
> 
> "Silence in love bewrays more woe  
> Than words, though ne'er so witty:  
> A beggar that is dumb, you know,  
> May challenge double pity."


End file.
